Wade Rouse - Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler: A Memoir

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Contents

Part One
The Fall Semester

Part Two
The Spring Semester

For Gary, my muse

I promise the dream will get easier

I am getting to know the rich.

I think youll find the only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich have more money.

MARY COLUMS RESPONSE TO ERNEST HEMINGWAY

Authors Note

To be perfectly transparent from the start, a personal disclosure: I highlight my hair. I do. I admit it. My real color is actually called dirty dishwater. Youd highlight, too, with that literally hanging over your head. I love lattes. And, yes, I admit to fake-baking in the dead of winter. Otherwise, I look like I have scurvy.

I have also worked for many years in educational administration, in development and publicity capacities, including numerous years in higher education as well as two tenures in independent education. The experiences recounted in this book occurred during my employment in independent education. To protect privacy and anonymity, I have changed names and identifying characteristics of everyone portrayed in this book, with the exception of my family and me. I also rearranged and compressed events and time periods to better clarify the narrative. In some instances, I combined the characteristics and incidents of several different people into a single character to help streamline the story and to further mask identities. Accordingly, no individual should be presumed to represent any one person. For example, Kitsy is a composite of several Mean Mommies I knew; Doty is a composite of several administrators with whom I worked.

I have also changed the name and disguised the identity and location of the school. Its an incredible place and continues to be so because of the dedication and commitment of countless wonderful teachers, administrators, and parents. I chose to write about a select few of the people I worked with whose personalities overshadowed the incredible work of the majority. This situation is what we often refer to in nonprofits as the five percent rule, whereby a subset of any group often requires constant attention and the remaining ninety-five percent are extraordinary human beings.

Part One

The Fall Semester

When Maria finally appeared, she wasnt hard to spot. In this mob she looked like something from another galaxy. She was wearing a skirt and big-shouldered jacket of a royal blue that was fashionable in France, a blue-and-white striped silk blouse, and electric-blue lizard pumps with white calf caps on the toes. The price of the blouse and the shoes alone would have paid for the clothes on the backs of any twenty women on the floor. She walked with a nose-up sprocket-hipped model-girl gait calculated to provoke maximum envy and resentment. People were staring.

SHERMAN MCCOY,
The Bonfire of the Vanities, BY TOM WOLFE

Everyone in the (Car) Pool!

Deep cleansing breath iiiiinnnn

Exhaling all the toxins

Rrrriiiiiiiinnnnggg! Rrrriiiiiiiinnnnggg!

Deep cleansing breath iiiinnnn

Exhaling all the toxins

Rrrriiiiiiiinnnnggg! Rrrriiiiiiiinnnnggg!

Deep cleansing breath iiiinnnn

I am wearing a Kenneth Cole suit, standing in the middle of my old, wide-windowed office at work, chanting and performing yoga breathing exercises. I am trying desperately to hear my inner voice, to hear only birds chirping and the sounds of ocean waves, but I can hear only the ringing of my phone. Blaring for the fourth time in less than two minutes.

I separate my hands, which are locked in prayer, and peer through them at the caller ID on my phone. Her again?

My knees creak as I sprint out the door, in a semipanic.

Im already running late for afternoon carpool, running late for my mommy.

It is the first day of school at Tate Academy, one of the nations most historic and revered private schools, where I serve as the mommy handler, and working the carpool lane is an essential, occasional, yet ongoing component of my job, kind of like working a streetcorner is to a hooker. In truth, there are real similarities: Each of us doggedly protects our assigned turf and, by end of the day, each of us knows were gonna end up screwed. In completely different ways, of course.

While my official and politically correct title at Tate Academy is Director of Public Relations, I was told that I was specifically hired to be the mommy handler. Those were the odd but secret words that were used in my original interview not so long ago by someone who, of course, has since left the school. I know they were used somewhat facetiously, but there is still a ring of truth. And it doesnt take a linguist to dissect that phrase.

I

handle

mommies.

In essence, I am the bug guard on the institutional vehicle; I get whacked and splattered, take the hits, so everyone else riding in the carthe administration, the faculty, the staff, the studentsstays clean and unharmed from annoying, stinging insects.

Working at a prep school, you see, is akin to being a beekeeper. You get stung enough timeslike I have, like all faculty and staff doand you always make sure to keep your protective gear on and zipped up tight. Frankly, you get a little paranoid. Because just when you are lulled by the sleepy hum of the buzzing or the richness of the honeyBAM!the bees attack. Its just the natural order of things here, the way of the colony: I am half worker bee, half eunuch-drone.

Today, this first day of school, I am on my way to get stung by the Queen Bee herself: Katherine Isabelle Ludington.

Mrs. Ludington is my new liaison to the parent group and alumni group, the two groups whose work I help oversee. She summoned me to meet with her for the first time just a few minutes earlier. The sound of her clipped, every-syllable-is-overenunciated voice this morning set off my yoga-induced chanting, my last-ditch effort to center my mind and body. It didnt work, and Im less than a day into the new school year.

I quickly snake my way along the worn brick path that runs alongside our cobblestone carpool lanes, sweating in the heat. It is 110 degrees in the shade. In the summer, the humidity of our city hangs in the air like fogthe result of being so close to a big body of waterand its heavy, hot wetness wilts you on first contact, making it difficult even to catch your breath in this American rain forest.

The reflection off the never-ending line of SUVs in carpool is blinding, and I did not bring my sunglassesmake that, would not bring my sunglasseswith me. Working at Tate Academy, I really need stylish new shades, hip shades, ones that make me look like I should be photographed on the town with my best pals Carson Daly and Christina Aguilera. The ones I own right now are from Targets childrens section since my head is so small; they are the only ones I can find that fit. My sunglasses say Sassy Girl on the side. This just doesnt cut it style-or genderwise at Tate, but it sums up the odd dichotomy that is my life here. In this river of money, I am the gay salmon swimming against the current. Except, I try every day not to make a splash, to fit in with the other, prettier fishthe ones going the right way in the currenteven though instinct tells me to swim like hell in the other direction.